'PASSION' GETS BELGIUM PREMIERE AT FEB FILM CLUBAND YET ANOTHER POSITIVE FRENCH REVIEW OF DE PALMA'S LATESTThe Genres Next Door monthly film club presents a premiere in Brussels, Belgium, of Brian De Palma's Passion on February 7. According to its website, Genres Next Door's monthly film club projects films that explore different sexualities and minority lifestyles through films that would otherwise see little or no distribution in Belgium. Tweets from Dutch journalists indicate that De Palma has been doing more interviews ahead of the premieres in Belgium and France (Feb. 13). Lindsey of Rachel McAdams Online tells us that Algemeen Dagblad is one of the biggest Dutch journalists. His tweet, according to Lindsey, says that he has finished writing up his interview with De Palma, and that he hopes that Passion will make it to Dutch theaters, which is not the case in all countries. "Unjustified!" he writes. And if you speak Dutch, you can listen to (and understand) an interview with Ghent Film Festival director Patrick Duynslaegher, discussing De Palma, at Radio 1. (Big thanks to Lindsey for steering us in the right direction on that, too!)

"DE PALMA AT THE TOP OF HIS ART"Meanwhile, Avoir-Alire's Kevin Bertrand posted a review of Passion yesterday, stating that "after five years of absence, Brian De Palma returns to top form." Bertrand likes that De Palma added his own twist to the Alain Corneau source material, and feels that making the two protagonists closer in age makes the erotic power plays involved in the story more credible. "Just like his characters," writes Bertrand, "Brian De Palma takes pleasure in manipulating his world, multiplying twists, blurring the boundaries between dream and reality to lose the viewer in a con game to the diabolically black conclusion."

'STOKER' AT SUNDANCEWELLS: "BIGGEST 'LOOK AT HOW I CAN OUT-DEPALMA AT HIS MOST OPERATIC' MOVIE"

Chan-wook Park's thriller Stoker had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival last night, and a couple of early reactions brought Brian De Palma into the discussion. The tweet above pairs Stoker with De Palma's latest, while Hollywood Elsewhere's Jeffrey Wells felt that Chan-wook tries to outdo De Palma. Wells posted, "I've just walked out of Park Chan-Wook's Stoker...nope. It's the biggest 'look at how I can out-DePalma at his most operatic!' show-off movie I've seen in a long, long time. Everything is visual candy to this guy, and sensible human behavior and story logic can go eff themselves because PCW doesn't give a damn...whooooo!"

A couple of positive reviews have been posted early by HitFix's Drew McWeeny and Fangoria's Ken Hanley. "Stoker prides itself on not being a conventional genre picture by any means," states Hanley, "but the hypnotic rhythm in which the film unfolds will undoubtedly keep any audience transfixed."

BIG DE PALMA CAREER INTERVIEW, 'PASSION', 'CARRIE'ALSO DONAGGIO, PJ SOLES, WILLIAM KATT, & MORE IN NEXT MONTH'S ISSUE OF FANGORIAFangoria has posted a preview of the cover and contents of next month's issue, with a big cover story on Brian De Palma. Here are a few highlights listed from the upcoming issue:

INTERVIEW: BRIAN DE PALMA From “Sisters” to “Carrie” to the new “Passion,” he’s been thrilling us in the most stylish ways. Plus: horrific highlights from decades of De Palma.

FEATURE: THE “PASSION” MASK How to make a face that suits two of the screen scene’s most accomplished actresses.

INTERVIEW: P.J. SOLES She turned a small part in “Carrie” into a memorable mean girl. Plus: Pino Donaggio and William Katt on making beautiful music with Carrie.

PREVIEW: “CARRIE” She’s headed for the prom again this year, and director Kimberly Peirce is chaperoning.

DE PALMA, PACINO, & 'COP-OUT' IN 1970AND AUDIO SNIPPET FROM DE PALMA INTERVIEW IN 2002Thanks to Greg Srisavasdi at Hollywood Outbreak for reminding us that, back in 1997, Al Pacino had been in talks for the part of Kevin Dunn in Brian De Palma's Snake Eyes. Pacino eventually turned it down, and Gary Sinise ended up taking on the role opposite Nicolas Cage (Will Smith had also flirted with that project). But there is another little-known project that De Palma and Pacino had tried to put together way before Scarface.

In the book Brian De Palma: Conversations with Samuel Blumenfeld and Laurent Vachaud, De Palma says that back in 1970, he and Pacino attempted to mount a film version of John Guare's short play Cop-Out, which had a high-profile opening on Broadway in April of 1969, but only ran 8 performances. De Palma said in the book that they tried to set up the film with Warner Bros., where De Palma made Get To Know Your Rabbit that same year, following his independently-made Hi, Mom!.

Guare's Cop-Out is a surreal play in which two policemen, one in uniform and one in plainclothes, are played by the same actor, who interchanges (amidst stage blackouts and musical cues) between the two counterpoints of straight-laced police work (the stuttering uniformed one) and noirish absurd fantasies (the smooth and cocky plainclothes one). Each man interacts with a woman, the only other performer in the piece, and she alternates along with him. At one point, the plainclothes cop is drawn into an avant-garde play (a play-within-the play) which finds him under the covers, servicing Marilyn Monroe under the guise of several U.S. presidents, from Washington to Lincoln to Roosevelt, etc. The actor pops up from under the covers to deliver each president's gag-line as Groucho Marx might (complete with cigar), singing crude songs, etc.

The driving "plot" of the play is a whodunnit detective story, with a marked contrast between the cops who, played by the same actor, seem like two sides of the same personality. This aspect, of course, would have fit right in with the types of films De Palma would go on to make throughout his career, and it seems likely he might have envisioned some sort of split-screen for the film version, having just finished the split-screen Dionysus In '69. It certainly would have been an interesting film.

DE PALMA AUDIO SNIPPETWhile you're at the Hollywood Outbreak link, check out Srisavasdi's snippet of audio from an interview he did with De Palma for Femme Fatale a little over a decade ago, in which the director talks about leaving enough room in a screenplay to allow for visual design. Great stuff!

PRESSMAN, PACINO, DE PALMA TEAMING UPFOR 'HAPPY VALLEY', THE NOW-CONTROVERSIAL STORY OF PENN STATE COACH JOE PATERNOWell, I thought there was some reason Brian De Palma had suddenly dropped out of the Jason Statham Heat remake a few weeks ago. Looks like he was cooking up something big with two of his old friends. Deadline's Mike Fleming broke the news today that De Palma will reteam with Al Pacino for Happy Valley, "the working title of a film that will tell the story of Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno," according to Fleming. The focus of the film is being kept under wraps for now, but Fleming writes that "Paterno’s legend was undone by revelations he and others in the football program were aware that former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was molesting children, and did little to stop it, supposedly fearing bad publicity for the powerhouse gridiron program they presided over."

Happy Valley is being co-produced by Edward R. Pressman, who produced De Palma's Sisters and Phantom Of The Paradise. Pacino's manager, Rick Nicita, will also produce, along with Joe Posnanski, who wrote the book Paterno, which has been optioned by Pressman. The project is backed by the Edward R. Pressman Film Corporation. Fleming adds that David McKenna, who wrote the scripts for American History X and Blow, as well as for the video game Scarface: The World Is Yours, is making a deal to write the screenplay. "Happy Valley reunites the Scarface and Carlito’s Way team of De Palma & Pacino for the third time," Pressman told Deadline, "and I can’t think of a better duo to tell this story of a complex, intensely righteous man who was brought down by his own tragic flaw."

Last September, Fleming reported that Pacino was attached to play Paterno. At that time, Nicita was named as the producer, and the project was being shopped around. In that September post, Fleming wrote, "The narrative arc of the movie that will be shopped is obvious. A man becomes the winningest coach in college football history and builds a powerhouse football program that turns him into a campus deity. When his former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky is revealed to be a pedophile and it comes out Paterno was told and helped hide the scandal, the coach was summarily fired. He died shortly after of cancer — and many feel of a broken heart — and the school had little choice but to raze a fabled statue of Paterno just as the NCAA dropped the hammer with sanctions against the school that included removal of Paterno’s wins going back to the cover-up. Sandusky was found guilty on 45 counts of sexual abuse against young boys and is expected to spend the rest of his life in prison."

Fleming was soon flooded with e-mails, and updated the post with this:

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"UPDATE: Rarely have I gotten so many emails on a story that has struck a nerve among former students of Penn State. Some claiming to have clout in Hollywood say they will try to squash this project, and others are critical of me and defensive of the beloved Paterno, claiming he got a raw deal. I can’t imagine these apologists have kids. The idea that nobody acted seriously on information given by grad assistant and later assistant coach Mike McQueary that could have stopped a predator convicted on dozens of counts of molesting vulnerable children is unconscionable. Paterno defenders say that McQueary was vague in describing what he saw, but I fall on the side of those who feel that Paterno was so powerful at Penn State that he could have stopped this in its tracks had he chosen to follow up, or even if he had dialed three numbers: 911. McQueary certainly wasn’t vague in his testimony at Sandusky’s trial, saying he was sure he had stumbled upon Sandusky engaging in a sexual act with an underage boy. When I think of great college coaches, I wonder: what would someone like Bobby Knight have done if given the same information?

"The administration at Penn State chose to protect its cherished powerhouse and lucrative football program, and went against the contract that any institution of higher learning has, which is to protect the young and vulnerable. The idea that this just somehow happened, and nobody but Sandusky was to blame, is something I will never embrace. Had that been the case, I doubt the university would have fired Paterno and later torn down his statue, or that the NCAA would have leveled devastating sanctions against the football program at the expense of current players who had absolutely nothing to do with any of this and who didn’t deserve punishment that was delivered to send a clear message about prioritizing what is important. Regretfully, that is Paterno’s enduring legacy now. But keep the emails coming!"

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In today's report, Fleming writes:

"There are so many themes to deal with here, from Paterno’s rise and his loyalty to a football program he spent his life building, to the obvious question of how a molder of young men could possibly have stood silently by when told that one of his former coaches started a charity for underprivileged kids and used it as a way to ingratiate himself into vulnerable young fatherless boys for sexual encounters? The failure of Paterno and university officials to act allowed Sandusky to continue molesting boys for years, which was borne out in court testimony leading to his conviction and incarceration. Posnanski was working on a book about Paterno and was well into it when the scandal broke. The book is as much about what made Paterno tick as anything else, and capturing complex characters is something Pacino does well. He played a conflicted pro football coach in Any Given Sunday, and Jack Kevorkian in the HBO film You Don’t Know Jack."

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Pacino also plays the title role in the David Mamet-written-and-directed HBO film Phil Spector, which premieres in March.